HARTFORD >> The Working Families Party has cross-endorsed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman for re-election, putting them again on two ballot lines in the November election.

In 2010, the WFP brought in 26,308 votes for Malloy and Wyman, a figure that helped make the difference in their close win over Republican Tom Foley.

Foley, the endorsed party gubernatorial candidate again this year, is in a Aug. 12 primary with state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney. Foley lost to Malloy in 2010 by 6,404 votes.

The endorsement by the WFP was no surprise given the positive reaction of its members to the incumbents at a forum for the state office candidates in June.

The Working Families Party, which started out in New York, was most recently responsible for helping Robyn Porter get elected to the 92nd state House seat in New Haven previously held by Gary Holder-Winfield, who now is the 10th District senator. It also has backed Hartford legislators and Bridgeport school board members.

It is a coalition of labor unions and community organizations who back candidates based on their policies with regard to jobs, health care, minimum wage and paid sick days, and it usually cross-endorses candidates.

The party, in a statement said Malloy has shown that “government can help improve the lives of working families” and they are “confident that he will continue to bring progressive reform to Connecticut.”

It said it continues to support Malloy because he supported boosting the minimum wage to $10.10, the first in the country to do so, and helped enact paid sick day legislation for certain categories of service workers.

“Governor Malloy was one of the few governors in the country to ask the very wealthy to pay their fair share to close the budget gap instead of cutting essential services. Governor Malloy gave state Childcare Workers and Personal Care Attendants the right to organize and collectively bargain, leading to thousands and thousands of workers joining a union,” the party also detailed in its endorsement.

The workers were unionized in Connecticut similar to the way they were in Illinois, which was the site of the court case.

In Connecticut, the workers are paid with state funds, but they are technically hired by the disabled and senior citizens they help. The high court ruled they were not full-fledged public workers and therefore didn’t fall under the 1977 ruling allowing public-sector unions to collect dues from everyone they represent.

A wage boost the home care workers in Connecticut received recently went into effect without the deduction of dues until the state can further determine how the court ruling impacts them.

WFP said it surveyed its members twice, had the candidates fill out a questionnaire and held the candidate forum before it made its endorsement.

The one area it disagrees with Malloy is over his support for charter schools and his initial approach to evaluating teachers; WFP also worked to support continuation of an elected school board in Bridgeport, which was upheld by the courts.

The party has said it is not a single-issue constituency and on the whole, Malloy supports the issues that are of primary importance to it.

Jonathan Pelto, who is running for governor on the Education and Democracy Party and expects to gather enough signatures by Aug. 6 to get on the November ballot, was highly critical of the WFP endorsement for Malloy.

He took issue with its statement that Malloy asked the wealthy to help close a budget gap, rather than cutting social service programs.

Pelto criticized Malloy for not changing the tax rate on those who made more than $1 million. Malloy, however, did not cut aid to towns as was done in New York and New Jersey, which pushed tax increases down to the local level.

“The Working Families Party endorsement is disappointing but not surprising. They have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they put politics before policy and that is a sad commentary indeed,” Pelto said.

Malloy and Wyman welcomed the endorsement

“While other governors cut funding for public schools, we invested in public education every year. There is more work to do to make sure that every Connecticut family has a good job, fair wages, and opportunity for their children. This election is too important to go backward to the failed policies of the past,” they said in a statement.